As an exponent of Plato he suffered from the fatal error of confounding Plato with the later Platonists.
At the same time the application of the Civil Constitution of the Clergy roused the whole of western La Vende; and in face of the danger threatened by the refractory clergy and by the army of the migrs, the Girondins set about confounding the court with the Feuillants in the minds of the public, and compromising Louis XVI.
The first of these is difficult to judge and must be left as a possible confounding factor.
Historically, these confounding effects have been controlled using linear models assuming a constant additive error variance.
Again and again, during his absence on the public service, the barons and prelates would assemble to compass his ruin or dispose of his crown, when, suddenly, " like a tempest," from the depths of Silesia or of Bosnia, he would himself appear among them, confounding and scattering them, often without resistance, always without bloodshed.